Just like I Walked with a Zombie, behind the incredibly silly title lurks a pretty decent little B-movie.

I Married a Monster from Outer Space was made by Paramount Pictures in 1958. Directed by Gene Fowler and written by Louis Vittes, it involves a young suburban bride (Gloria Talbot) who comes to suspect that her husband (Tom Tryon) has somehow changed since their recent marriage. She is wrong on that account. Her husband hasn’t changed, he’s been totally replaced by the afore-mentioned monster. So have several other husbands in her neighborhood.

Yes, the plot seems like a blatant rip-off of the oft-remade sci-fi classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but the acting, script and production values (particularly how lightning can reveal parts of the monster’s true visage) are very well done.

Obviously intended for the drive-ins that were so popular at the time, I Married a Monster from Outer Space was actually part of a double feature Paramount put together. The “second great co-hit” was a little film that was a lot sillier but has fared a lot better in people’s memories – The Blob!

I Married a Monster from Outer Space is available on DVD and from several online streaming services. Trust us, it’s worth a look. And keep watching the skies!

If you’re planning to watch some vintage horror movies during Halloween week, here are our recommendations for some films not quite as well known as Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolf Man:

The Cat People (1942) – The first in a series of classic horror films produced by Val Lewton (on a shoestring budget). This one deals with a young woman who will not have sex with her husband, fearing that if she does she will turn into a deadly panther and kill him. How they even handled this mature plot in the prudish 40’s make this worth a watch.

The Body Snatcher (1945) – Not to be confused with Invasion of the Body Snatchers, this is another Val Lewton gem that features the final on-screen teaming of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Based on a story by Robert Louis Stevenson, this movie is about grave-robbing in Scotland.

Dr. Jeckyll and Sister Hyde (1971) – Speaking of Stevenson, this is a unique take-off of his famous and oft-filmed horror story. Instead of becoming a raging brute, the good doctor transforms into a gorgeous, but equally murderous woman. This Hammer film works far better than it might because the resemblance between Ralph Bates and his female alter ego, Martine Beswick is astonishing.

The Others (2001) – A genuinely creepy little ghost story that stars Nicole Kidman as a mother fiercely protecting her two children in a remote country house while waiting for her husband to return from World War II. To give any more details would be to spoil the marvelous chills that this film delivers.

I Walked with a Zombie may be the best movie with the dumbest title in motion picture history. Cranked out by b-movie horror unit at RKO pictures in 1943, this low budget gem is far better than you might expect.

This was the second in a strong of really good low-key horror movie produced under the supervision of Val Lewton, one of filmland’s most underappreciated artists.

RKO had two rules he had to follow. One, he had to produce his films on a small budget. Two, he had to use titles the studio’s marketing department had already dreamed up and tested. The studio didn’t care about the actual plots, as long as Lewton used the titles.

So after they saddled Lewton with The Cat People and he turned that title into a really great horror movie, they gave him an even sillier title for his follow-up.

I Walked with a Zombie concerns a young nurse (Frances Dee) who arrives at a sugar plantation on the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian. She is to care for the invalid wife of the plantation’s owner, played by Tom Conway. The wife appears near catatonic and is given to taking silent, dreamlike walks at night. The local legend is that the wife is not sick, but actually dead and returned to life as a zombie by the island’s voodoo practitioners.

While often lumped together with “The Twilight Zone” and “Boris Karloff’s Thriller,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” is the true original, debuting 4 years before TZ and 5 before “Thriller.”

Alfred Hitchcock’s show was also different than the other two in that it didn’t deal in either supernatural or science-fiction. The situations may have been odd, but were always rooted in reality. Cold, brutal or gruesome reality, but reality nonetheless.

The show debuted in the fall of 1955 featuring a pair of now-classic episodes directed by the master himself. The first, “Revenge” about a husband looking for the man who assaulted his wife when she was alone in their mobile home and “Breakdown” featuring Joseph Cotton as a man paralyzed in a car crash, unable to tell the workers carting him off to the morgue that he’s not dead!

Hitch would go on to direct 15 more half-hours during the show’s 8 season run. But even when he wasn’t directing, the show always highlighted ed his style of crime thrillers. And of course, each episode featured the master himself introducing and closing each program with a generous helping of his macabre sense of humor and disdain for the sponsor.